With Retail Media Standardization Initiative, Omnicom Media Group Aims to Bring Accountability and Transparency to Digital Media's $45b Third Wave

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Oct 18, 2023, 14:53 ET

Effort from OMG's Council on Accountability and Standards in Advertising (CASA) Powers Push for Incrementality Capability

NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Omnicom Media Group, the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) has launched a Retail Media Standardization Initiative to define and drive capabilities and practices that will increase advertiser confidence and ROI when investing in retail media channels, driving growth for brands and media owners alike.

Retail media has been called the third wave of digital advertising, following search and social - and it's expected to be the biggest wave yet with 2023 spend expected to hit $45b domestically (10 percent of total US advertising spend) and $123b globally. However, the rapid growth of the channel has outpaced the development of standards and best practices. Problems such as proving incrementality, lack of standardized KPIs across networks, and limited targeting and attribution capabilities are detriments to impact and ROI.

The OMG standards were developed by the group's Council on Accountability and Standards in Advertising - a collaboration of OMG agencies, clients and media partners committed to advancing advertiser control, transparency, and brand safety for advertisers across CTV, retail, social and SSP channels – and are organized around four core advertiser rights and partner capability pillars.

"Retail media is an increasingly important part of both upper and lower funnel strategies, and while retail media networks have excelled at showing the impact on lower-funnel strategies, it has been challenging to show how upper funnel channels like CTV can contribute to sales in meaningful ways," says OMG Chief Activation Officer Megan Pagliuca. "These standards are designed to solve for that challenge. By connecting the upper and lower funnel strategies through retail media data, buyers will better understand the incremental impact something like a CTV ad can have on downstream sales."

Over the past several months, the CASA retail team has been engaging with eight of the biggest and fastest growing retail media networks to present the retail standards; capture and document the capabilities of each retailer specific to individual pillars; and accelerate enablement of new capabilities.

"The growth potential of Retail Media Networks and the channel's singular offer to marketers is the proximity to sales that allows a direct link from brand message to product purchased – and even more importantly, to measure incrementality," says Kristi Argyilan, SVP Retail Media, Albertsons Companies. "This level of attribution can only be achieved when media owners commit to a shared standard of accountability that includes incrementality testing, measurement and reporting. As a company that has been a vocal advocate for standards and has adopted or is the process of adopting each CASA Retail pillar, we believe that efforts like CASA and the Albertsons Media Collective standards framework are critical to driving growth in retail media channels - for brands and media owners alike."

Currently, every CASA retail media partner is fully enabled against at least one pillar; and half are enabled against three out of four.

Today's announcement is the third in a series of Advertising Week reports from OMG revealing the advances in advertiser control and seller transparency that the CASA initiative is enabling across social, SSP, retail and CTV channels.

About Omnicom Media Group

Omnicom Media Group (OMG), the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC), delivers transformational experiences for consumers, clients, and talent. Powered by the Omni marketing orchestration system, OMG connects best -in-class capabilities that enable our full-service media agencies OMD, PHD and Hearts & Science to deliver more relevant and actionable consumer experiences; more productive and proactive client experiences; and more collaborative and rewarding talent experiences for the more than 23,000 people serving the world's leading brands in OMG agencies around the globe.

SOURCE Omnicom Media Group